Guardian Weekly Letters, 23 August 2013

Tuesday 20 August 2013 08.59 EDT
First published on Tuesday 20 August 2013 08.59 EDT

Confronting the matrix

Ian Cobain explores the role of dual nationality in preparing young Muslims for martyrdom, as enjoined by the US "disposition matrix" and Obama's "Terror Tuesday" (America's seek and destroy list, 9 August). However, he does not go so deeply into corresponding dual loyalties at the heart of Anglo-American intelligence.

Unlike young Muslims – or our political representatives in London and Washington – the spooks of MI6 and CIA have been working together for most of their professional lives over several generations. Their matrix of pooled information, common interest and symbiotic mind-set runs deeper and denser than the transient alliances of militant Islam or party government.

While the White House and Downing Street must deny any intention to spy on, let alone target, ordinary citizens, can we believe that the transatlantic terminal at GCHQ would not dip into a database that can link keywords to identities and addresses, family and birthplace, place of worship or comprehensive school? Can we assume that whoever joins up the dots and targets the drones will be acting at our disposition or be well-disposed towards us?Greg WilkinsonSwansea, UK

• Once again the PR department of the CIA has cooked up another Orwellian euphemism for their drone "hit list": the disposition matrix. As "the Company" once liquidated its adversaries in "wet affairs" or terminated them "with extreme prejudice", it now predisposes itself as to who's to be disposed of. The Latin matrix originally referred to the uterus or (by synecdoche) a breeding animal. Our concept of matrix has carried over from the Latin root's essence of "spreading out, swelling" (the belly). Singularly so, a "disposition matrix" is a womb of death, ever-expanding. It has a respectable ring to it, though.R M FranssonDenver, Colorado, US

Companies, following Milton Friedman's edict about serving shareholders, have gone out of control, while workers and consumers mean nothing.

There are two obvious implications from these practices. One is that soon no one will be able to afford the products produced since no one will be working long enough or getting paid well enough to buy what they are producing.

The second point shows just how important unions and governments are to regulate the economy so that workers and consumers are properly protected. Otherwise, we will see our society descending into a new form of feudalism where we are literally owned by the company store.Bernie KoenigLondon, Ontario, Canada

• A "rich cultural life" may benefit a politician's personal life. It may not always benefit his or her politics. In attending the opening of the Bayreuth festival, Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, follows in the footsteps of an infamous predecessor on whom the influence of the self-confessed antisemitic Wagner was anything but beneficial.Stephen QuigleyChichester, UK

We deserve much better

The news that the Metropolitan Police have felt obliged to apologise for the appalling behaviour of PC Harman is something of a relief (Tomlinson family win police apology, 9 August). The relentless struggle of the family of Ian Tomlinson over the past four years has been a spectacle that speaks ill of our society. We saw how on this occasion (and many others) the first reaction of the police was denial and the spread of misinformation (lies, in other words). Had it not been for the emergence of the incriminating video and the persistence of Guardian journalist Paul Lewis, the police would have got away with their wilful misrepresentation and we would be back to a force infamous for its violence and brutality.

We deserve better than this: we pay for a police force to protect society and its lawful citizens. As it stands we are still in danger of permitting a situation where the police feel free to act with impunity and to use excessive force as a means of intimidation. It's a slippery slope and there are plenty of examples around the world of what can happen when "security forces" are allowed to slide down it.Brian SimsBedford, UK

Political errors and crime

One of the editorials in your 2 August issue (Egypt: Time to back down) contained the following sentence: "Political mistakes are not crimes in a civilised country." While there is much truth in this statement, especially in the context of events in Egypt at present, it is a dangerous generalisation to make, as such an understanding serves corrupt, negligent and immoral leaders far better than it does their subjects.

For instance, it should be possible for citizens of a state that has been deemed to have waged a war of aggression to label their leaders' actions criminal, both semantically and in a court of law. And waging war in such a manner is merely the most serious of countless instances of criminal behaviour a country's leaders could undertake while in power.

In this sense, it could be claimed that refusing to countenance political mistakes sometimes being of a criminal nature – ie choosing to pass these off as the unfortunate result of misplaced enthusiasm, naivety, a lack of information or simply regrettable decision-making – is an alternative gauge of a country's level of civilisation.Allan BainHelsinki, Finland

Give Gibraltar back

After the Spanish government fully compensates ethnic-Anglo and British-national residents of Gibraltar for their property and monetary accumulation if they wish to relocate, Britain should completely relinquish its imperialist history and return lands thousands of kilometres away, nowhere even near the UK: specifically, Gibraltar, but also the Falkland Islands (World roundup, 16 August).

As for the referendums favouring British ownership (others would call it a derelict occupation), it's all too easy to populate mostly desolate foreign lands, and then, over very many years of procreation, have the British nationalist descendents vote and vote again in favour of their ethnicity's national origin.

How many bloody wars will have to be fought over British ownership of populated lands so very far from home?Frank G Sterle JrWhite Rock, British Columbia, Canada

Protecting the gorillas

I was extremely worried to read the article stating that the Virunga National Park "home to rare mountain gorillas" is being targeted for oil exploration – of all things – by a British company, which insists its work would not affect the gorillas (World roundup, 9 August) .

On the contrary, I lived for 16 years in Tanzania. My husband and I visited the gorilla national park in 1957 during our honeymoon tour of east Africa and the Congo, so I am very aware of all that is going on among the animals there, and am very distressed by much of what I am hearing: the slaughter of elephants for ivory, rhino for horn, smuggling of infant animals, destruction of habitat and so on. We did all we could to leave Tanzania viable, and this is our reward.

The Virunga reserve is not large and it must surely be obvious that the infiltration of a horde of oil workers and their noisy equipment would hardly pass without notice. But will Soco International be sure that among their horde there will not be hidden poachers, agents for criminal animal resources firms? It would not be long before they found the reserve extinct.

We can only hope that the World Wildlife Fund can divert Soco from this disastrous plan by letting other concerned parties know if there is anything they can do to assist.JS ScottEdinburgh, UK

Healing power of writing

The healing power of journal writing has been known for quite a while, then more or less forgotten and now very happily rediscovered by "hard" science (Oliver Burkeman, 2 August).

Indeed, when writing a journal you cannot only attain a third-person perspective by externalising your thoughts, but you can also go further: for instance, by using the Progoff journaling method, you can lead a dialogue with the traumatising event that crippled your life, be it an accident, a handicap, an illness. In such a dialogue – preceded by a meticulous preparation – the event, situation or circumstance that burdens you will speak to you in its own voice and eventually turn out to be a teacher conveying to you important insights about your life and the life of all the others bearing the same burden.

This is a truly life-changing experience.Heidemarie Graul-BellaliCasablanca, Morocco

• Where does Oliver Burkeman get his arrogant self-esteem? None of his columns has changed my life one whit since they began appearing.John NewellPenticton, British Columbia, Canada

Briefly

• I fully endorse the initiative for women to be featured on banknotes (2 August). I also think Jane Austen a good choice. She had a clear-eyed perception of the power and limits of money.

Take (almost at random) this passage from Sense and Sensibility: "Their mother had nothing, and their father only £7,000 in his own disposal, for the remaining moiety of his first wife's fortune was also secured to her child, and he had only a life interest in it."

Precise enough for the governor of the Bank of England.Ann BurrettCorndale, NSW, Australia